


The Allegory Machine Is Another Matter Entirely

by rionaleonhart



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-07
Updated: 2011-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-07 06:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15902544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rionaleonhart/pseuds/rionaleonhart
Summary: In which a plague of one ferocious alligator is unleashed upon the Tri-State Area.





	The Allegory Machine Is Another Matter Entirely

As Perry burst into Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated (or unlocked the door and walked through, strictly speaking, but he preferred to think of it as ‘bursting in’; his mode of entry had felt distinctly un-secret-agentish ever since Doofenshmirtz had given him a key), something nagged at him. There was something he had told himself to remember. There was definitely something he had told himself to remember. What was it?

“Ah, Perry the Platypus: how unexpected!” Doofenshmirtz declared. “And by unexpected, I mean: you’re trapped!”

_That_ was it. Perry turned around just in time to see wild eyes and snapping jaws before he was indeed trapped inside an oversized robotic replica of Doofenshmirtz’s head on wheels.

This was deeply disturbing.

Perry clutched the bars in place of the robotic head’s teeth and chittered angrily. Doofenshmirtz beamed at him. As always, Perry made a mental note to check for traps the next time he came here; as always, he immediately forgot it.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Perry the Platypus; you’re just in time to witness my latest creation.” Doofenshmirtz held his arms out, indicating an enormous metal contraption. “Behold! The Alligatinator!”

Perry, not having much else to do in his present situation, obligingly beheld.

“With just a push of a button,” Doofenshmirtz announced, “I shall unleash a plague of ferocious alligators across _THE ENTIRE TRI-STATE AREA!_ ” He paused, frowning a little. “And then I suppose I’ll take it over somehow. I spent so much time designing your trap that I haven’t really had time to think about the post-alligatinating part yet. I hope you appreciate the amount of workmanship that goes into these things. Anyway, ferocious alligators everywhere; I’m sure that’s going to help me seize control _somehow_.”

Perry rolled his eyes and in doing so caught sight of the internal contours of the oversized robotic Doofenshmirtz head, which, unsurprisingly, reminded him that he was trapped inside an oversized robotic Doofenshmirtz head. He decided not to roll his eyes again.

“But I think I should test it first, don’t you, Perry the Platypus?” Doofenshmirtz asked with a grin, rotating the Alligatinator to point it directly at Perry’s unsettling prison. A funnel projected out of the front of the machine, the perfect size through which to fire an alligator.

This wasn’t going well. Perry began to _make_ himself look at the inside of the trap. There had to be a way out. There was always a way out. There was so consistently a perfect escape method just within his reach, in fact, that Perry was almost beginning to suspect that Doofenshmirtz left them there on purpose.

“Ready, Perry the Platypus?” Doofenshmirtz asked, his finger hovering just over a big red button on the side of the machine.

Perry was beginning to sweat. No release button. No self-destruct button. No escape hatch Doofenshmirtz had inexplicably installed just in case he somehow managed to catch himself in a trap much smaller than him.

Doofenshmirtz’s finger inched closer.

And then he pulled it away.

“Oh, Perry the Platypus, you should see your face!” he crowed. “Of course I am not going to alligatinate an alligator into my own building! The ones that got loose when I was putting them _into_ the Alligatinator were bad enough. And those Pest Control people can be so snide.”

With the subtlest sigh of relief he could manage, Perry resumed looking for a way out at a more leisurely pace.

“I mean, you call them up and tell them you’ve got alligators in your apartment, and of course they want to know how they _got_ there, and you can’t exactly tell them about your evil schemes because let me tell you, Perry the Platypus, not everyone is as willing to listen as you, so you have to say you don’t know, and _then_ they’re all— oh.”

Perry, in his search for an escape route, hadn’t managed to catch exactly what had just happened, but from the doctor’s abruptly cut-off gesture, the button right by his still-outstretched hand and the menacing whirring noise coming from the Alligatinator he thought he could make a reasonably informed guess.

“Oh,” Doofenshmirtz said, again. “That’s not good.”

Perry kept his eyes focused narrowly on the Alligatinator’s funnel, running through his fighting-an-alligator-from-behind-bars training in his head.

“You know, Perry the Platypus, I’m just going to let you out,” Doofenshmirtz said, pressing a button on a remote. The Doofenshmirtz head opened its mouth, and Perry gladly leapt out of it with a little shudder. “I really don’t want to deal with those Pest Control guys again. You probably know how to get rid of semi-aquatic reptiles, right?” He paused, considering. “I really should have made a plan for de-alligatinating the Tri-State Area after I conquered it.”

Perry dropped into a fighting stance, still watching the Alligatinator.

The machine hissed and thundered, and then something came out of the funnel.

It was not an alligator.

It was a cloud of grey smoke, which rose up and formed itself into the words ‘PERRY THE PLATYPUS SMELLS BAD’.

Perry blinked at it, then looked around at the sound of Doofenshmirtz’s laughter.

“Oh, you wait until you hear what I have done,” Doofenshmirtz said, wiping the mirth from his eyes. “You are going to laugh so much, Perry the Platypus.”

Perry doubted this, but he was prepared to listen.

“This isn’t the Alligatinator; it is the _Allegatinator_! You see? Allegatinate with an ‘e’, like in ‘allegation’. This just makes insulting claims about people. The _real_ Alligatinator is this -inator _next_ to it, the one that looks exactly the same.”

The real Alligatinator was pointing over the railing, toward the city. Doofenshmirtz turned the Allegatinator to face the same way, demonstrating that, other than being mirrored, the two designs were in fact identical.

“And I got them mixed up!” Doofenshmirtz exclaimed, now standing between the machines. “How silly is that? I mean, they both have their _names_ printed on the side, come o— oh.”

With another expansive gesture, Doofenshmirtz had managed to hit the buttons on both -inators simultaneously.

“Maybe I should just start wearing a straitjacket when I talk,” he said.

The machines expelled their respective smoke and freshwater reptile almost instantly; presumably the Allegatinator had warmed up nicely and the Alligatinator didn’t need to. Perry rushed to the balcony and whipped out his binoculars to survey the damage.

The alligator landed in the Flynn-Fletcher backyard and ate what looked like an attempt at the world’s largest pie in one implausible gulp, then turned around, looked at something above them and growled. Perry fiddled with the dial on the binoculars until they switched to the external view of Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. from one of the OWCA’s surveillance cameras. Above the building, floating in thick grey smoky letters, were the words ‘ALLIGATORS HAVE BELOW-AVERAGE MUSICAL TASTE’.

As Perry took the binoculars away from his eyes, he noticed that the alligator was hiring a cab.

“You know, I’ve noticed that a disproportionate number of my evil devices only seem to affect that one backyard,” Doofenshmirtz said, thoughtfully. “Why do you think that is, Perry the Pl—” and then Perry kicked him in the face.

“All right, all right!” Doofenshmirtz spluttered, when Perry had him at his mercy. “I’ll disable the Alligatinator, I’ll fire the alligators back into the zoo, whatever. I don’t know what I’d do with all those alligators, anyway. I’ll just use the Allegatinator to make unfounded accusations about my brother and lower his popularity as Mayor. That’s okay, right?”

Perry, his webbed foot still planted on Doofenshmirtz’s chest, gave him a very flat look.

“What, you’re not even going to let me get away with _libel_? Really? Libel is, like, the smallest evil there is.”

Perry continued to stare him down, and then there was a knock at the door.

Perry hesitated.

“Are you not going to let me get that?” Doofenshmirtz asked. “That’s very rude, you know, Perry the Platypus.”

Which was true, so Perry removed his foot. Doofenshmirtz got to his feet, dusted off his labcoat and walked over to the door, and it wasn’t until he had his hand on the handle that Perry realised who their visitor probably was. He gave a warning chitter, but too late.

The alligator pushed through into the apartment, looking furious.

“Ah,” Doofenshmirtz said, backing away. “Now, obviously there’s been some sort of misunderstanding.”

The alligator continued to advance. Her teeth looked very big and very sharp. Perry began to wonder whether he should do something.

“Perry the Platypus?” Doofenshmirtz asked, almost tripping backward over the robotic model of his head. “A little help here, perhaps?”

Perry jerked his head meaningfully towards the Allegatinator.

“Disable the Allegatinator? No, I don’t think so.”

Fair enough. Perry hopped up onto the railing and readied his glider.

“No, wait!” Doofenshmirtz cried. The alligator was now snapping at his ankles. “Can we compromise or something? What if I modified the Allegatinator so it only made _true_ allegations?”

Perry paused, then shrugged and jumped back inside to face the alligator. It wouldn’t be a crime, after all.

The alligator reared up threateningly on her hind legs and snarled.

Perry handed her a business card for the OWCA.

The alligator took a brief look at it, then turned around and crawled out of the apartment. Maybe she’d make a good agent.

“ _Curse you, Perry the Platypus!_ ” Doofenshmirtz howled from behind him, and then, when Perry turned to frown at him, “Oh, I’m sorry, Perry the Platypus. I meant thank you. You know how it is; you get into a habit... anyway, I’ll get to work on modifying the Allegatinator now.”

Perry tipped his hat and left.

-

“Goat stew?” Melanie asked, eyeing the bowl with distaste. “Really?”

“It’s a great delicacy in Druelselstein,” Roger said between mouthfuls. “The trick is to use only the youngest goats. I’m thinking of – what was that?”

‘That’ had sounded a lot like evil cackling. The Mayor and his secretary both looked up to see ‘MAYOR ROGER DOOFENSHMIRTZ EATS KIDS’ emblazoned across the sky.

“Oh,” Roger muttered, “this is not going to help my campaign.”


End file.
